Realty boom sets Greater Hyderabad civic body cash registers ringing

HYDERABAD: In what is being interpreted by officials as a sign of construction activity getting back on the path of recovery in the city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has given over 8,700 building permissions in the past one year (2016-17) against 6,100 in 2015-16.

This spurt in building permissions comes after a lull in construction activity for the past three years, especially after 2013. Officials said of the total permissions issued in 2016-17, major residential projects accounted for 26 and multi-storeyed commercial buildings 21. The GHMC gave permissions for a built-up area of nearly 23 million square feet.

GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy said that in the process, for 2016-17, the municipal corporation earned Rs 526 crore through building permit fees, development and betterment charges. In contrast, the revenue from these sources for 2015-16 was Rs 515 crore. The GHMC also earned an additional RS 196 crore from Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) in the last financial year that ended this March 31.

The GHMC town planning wing officials said they have been able to process a rising number of of applications with the introduction of Development Permission Management System (DPMS), an online building permissions protocol that was introduced in June, 2016. “Initially we used this system for applications and permissions related to residential buildings.From this February , we extended the use of the DPMS to all commercial and multi-storey building applications,“ Janardhan Reddy said.

“The average time taken for disposal of building permission applications is 22 to 27 days compared to 30 to 40 days taken earlier,“ a GHMC official said.